How the list counts words
Each entry is a headword: the form you would look up in a dictionary.
- Verbs are in their base form. be covers am, is, are, was, were, and been; have covers has and had; do covers does and did.
- Nouns are singular: year also means years. people is the usual plural of person.
- a covers an, which is used before a vowel sound: a cat, an apple, an hour.
- Pronoun forms such as me, him, us, my, and their are listed as separate words, because they are different words, not just endings.
Many of these words have several meanings, and the right one depends on the sentence. The table gives the main ones; the example shows one of them.
The small words do the grammar
Much of the list is small grammar words: articles, pronouns, prepositions, and helping verbs. They carry little meaning alone but hold sentences together.
| Word | Job | Example |
|---|---|---|
| the / a | the = a specific thing; a = any one | The bus is late. I need a pen. |
| do | makes questions and negatives | Do you like tea? I don’t know. |
| have | forms the present perfect | I have finished. |
| will | talks about the future | It will rain tomorrow. |
| there | there is / there are = something exists | There is a café here. |
| it | an empty subject for weather and time | It’s cold. It’s 3 o’clock. |
Short words sound shorter in sentences
The table shows each word said carefully on its own. In normal speech, many short words lose their vowel:
- to /tu/ often sounds like /tə/: "I want to go".
- and /ænd/ often sounds like /ən/: "rock and roll".
- of /ʌv/ often sounds like /əv/ or just /ə/: "a cup of tea".
- can /kæn/ often sounds like /kən/: "I can swim". The negative can’t keeps its full vowel, which helps you hear the difference.
- the is /ðə/ before a consonant sound and often /ði/ before a vowel sound: "the apple".
Learning these weak forms makes fast English much easier to follow.
Learn them in phrases
Many of these words are most useful in fixed combinations. Learn the whole phrase, not the word alone:
- get up, go out, come back, look at, take a bus
- a lot of, a cup of, all day, one more time
- I think…, I don’t know, What time is it?, How are you?
Reading the example sentences aloud is a quick way to practice them in context.
Where to go next
- Common English phrases: whole sentences for everyday situations.
- English verbs: past forms of be, have, do, go, and hundreds more.
- English pronouns: all the forms of I, you, he, she, it, we, and they.